Typically, voice communication over the Internet works by using the combination of networks that make up a user Internet connection rather than the telecommunications network provided by a local or long distance company. Instead of talking into a telephone, a user speaks into a personal computer (PC) equipped with a microphone, speaker and a sound card. On the Internet, the voice traffic is treated as just a particular kind of data. The voice traffic, converted into bit form, is transmitted as data packets under the existing Internet protocol suites, TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/IP), that facilitate the reliable exchange of data between computers over the Internet. The TCP program layer divides the voice-based data file into one or more packets, numbers the packets, and then forwards the packets to the IP program layer. The IP program layer handles the addressing of each data packet that is transmitted from one computer to another on the Internet. Essentially, the TCP/IP protocol suites manage the assembly and reassembly of data into data packets that are transmitted and received across the Internet.
Typical connection procedures across an Internet require configuration of computer hardware with a software routine which allows connection with an Internet service provider, and another software routine which accesses a server configured computer across the Internet via established protocols. These Internet connection procedures, which have evolved with computer to computer communications in mind, lack the automated phone call connection procedures available with a telephone call connection. To make a telephone call connection, a caller simply dials a telephone number of a recipient.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide a method and apparatus for automatically establishing a phone call over an Internet connection.